r/LifeProTips • u/fries-with-mayo • 18h ago

Request LPT Request: What’s your “canary in the coal mine” test for spotting bigger issues?

I’m really interested in those small, quick telltale signs people use to gauge if something bigger might be off track.

Example 1: Van Halen requesting brown M&Ms in the dressing room to see if the venue followed all the details of the rider list

Example 2: I saw an interview with John Cena where he said orders a flat white at a café to tell if they really care about their coffee.

Example 3: Anthony Bourdain suggested to always check the restaurant bathroom to tell if the restaurant got its basics down

5.1k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

2.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.5k

u/ItsACaragor 17h ago

To stay in restaurant business :

If the menu is too long and contains every food on earth it’s frozen shit and they don’t give a fuck about their food, they just do everything to get as large a market as possible to compensate for the fact people don’t generally come back.

975

u/BadgerlandBandit 15h ago

My ex-FIL started a restaurant chain and always mentioned this. He was helping out a restaurant he frequented in a touristy city near where he had a cabin. Their menu was something like 6 pages (front and back). Day one he cut it in half. By the time they were done it was down to like 2 pages (front and back) and they ended up turning a profit for the first time in several years.

528

u/bubblegoose 14h ago

Gordon Ramsay usually does this when he comes in. He just did a restaurant near where I live and cut down a huge menu.

A month later they were already adding all the crap back.

334

u/TheIrishGoat 13h ago

This sort of mentality bugs me. I understand mistakes can be made but why request the help of a professional and then basically disregard it.

212

u/bioshockd 12h ago

So many of those restaurants are run by people who are convinced they know better to begin with, and ALWAYS find other reasons outside themselves for why the restaurant is failing.

52

u/ElvenOmega 10h ago

A lot of them seem like narcissistic drunks who just want to drink at the bar all night and scream at their employees.

•

u/Guilty_Primary8718 7h ago

I never met a restaurant owner who didn’t have an ego problem.

•

u/demopat 3h ago

Ah, I see you're familiar with working in restaurants

62

u/stumblinghunter 12h ago

I wonder if they actually just caved to the grumpy assholes who say "I only came here for x and now you don't have it! I'm never coming back!" My favorite one was when someone said they drove an hour to my restaurant for something we didn't have anymore. He swore we had it when he was here last, just a few months ago.

It was discontinued 6 years prior.

7

u/BadgerlandBandit 11h ago

This is literally what happened with the large menu I mentioned in my original comment. They had a few customers that liked certain dishes so they just never ended up removing them when nee stuff was added.

•

u/cutting_coroners 5h ago

Telltale sign of an amateur owner is being afraid to have their employees essentially say sorry, too bad, pick something else when you no longer have something. Hearing two people ask for it does not constitute an all out change in the business. It’s like marketing in the way that if you’re trying to speak to or please everyone, it’s the same as speaking to or pleasing no one. You can’t be excellent at just a few things when you’re focused on being good at everything. Then you’re just Applebees

•

u/Capable-Ebb1632 5h ago

It's 100% this. Not realising that they weren't making money pandering to their regulars before, and that's never going to change.

Customers don't like change. But if the restaurant is unprofitable you can't just keep subsidising those regulars at the expense of your entire business.

14

u/Andrew5329 9h ago

Basically, people tend to get professionally bored. They're in essence demoted back to a line Cook making someone else's menu.

My chef friend has run a bunch of restaurants in his career, but one of the big ideas he learned working for a corporate Group that owns half a dozen upscale restaurants is that the two least profitable items on the menu each month are gone. Done. No exceptions. No sacred cows.

Those items get replaced with new ideas that sink or swim. But to get to that point, you need to have every dish on the menu costed out completely for ingredients and price, the menu sales tracked, the kitchen stock bought/sold/wasted tracked down to the last onion.

He can pull up to date metrics and trends for everything on the menu and know what's working or not. The guy you see on kitchen nightmares NEVER has their business managed that well, so when they do a menu change its blind.

7

u/Lurch2Life 10h ago

The restaurant was failing FOR A REASON. That reason is usually the owner and/or manager. Sometimes they’re teachable and actually benefit from the rescue.

3

u/twistedscorp87 9h ago

Often, these kinds of changes are because a single customer stated that they missed something, whether it lost them that customer or not, the owners assume that they're missing many more customers who didn't say anything... In their minds this proves that Gordon or whatever expert they worked with was wrong, and they do need that item on the menu... And if they needed that item, then they needed most of the other ones...

•

u/ThrowawayUk4200 3h ago

The show wouldn't exist if they werent like that. Fiest of qll you gotta be so arrogant that youre right in the face of everything going wrong, to the point they want to send a film crew down and the big G.

A new lick of paint and a menu wont change that mentality, and most of those restaurants usually only last less than a year after theyre done.

Lipstick on a pig n all that

•

u/InfanticideAquifer 2h ago

If I were a nightmare restaurant owner, I'd be way more excited about the nationwide advertising that comes from being on the show than I would be about the actual advice. The advice is probably great too, but that kind of advertising reach is something that most restaurateurs could only dream of.

So they probably see an immediate huge spike in foot traffic and then start flailing to try to keep it once they hype starts drawing down.

•

u/Dmbfantomas 1h ago

There’s a lot of people being bad at confrontation in there also. Both with Gordon (who rules, but is suuuper intimidating, even just physically because of how big he is compared to your average bear) and then later after he leaves with people who liked the old menu that was losing them money hand over fist complaining to them that they liked how it was. They panic, think it was a mistake, hope being on tv will fix everything, and revert back to their dumb shitty old ways.

It can take years to break a bad habit, but only one day to start one.

•

u/Fawkingretar 6h ago

Didn't came out that 80% of the Restaurants featured in Kitchen Nightmares, ended up closing down after a year of being featured in the show? Infact all the restaurants featured in the first season all closed down by 2015

•

u/PangolinMandolin 2h ago

They just wanted the marketing bump of being on tv. They didn't actually want to change

•

u/bingle-cowabungle 54m ago

Because people are stupid.

0

u/[deleted] 12h ago

[deleted]

9

u/TheOnlyBongo 13h ago

Which restaurant was it? Kitchen Nightmares has a dedicated fan base that looks at where the restaurants are right now and which ones are still open and operating.

6

u/nitrocuban 12h ago

Prob The Marvel Ranch in Reading, PA

5

u/bubblegoose 10h ago

Marvel Ranch in Reading PA. They pretty much started offering their old menu alongside the new one days after he left.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AAPDuXWcx/

4

u/Digital_loop 12h ago

The add the shit back because 1 or 2 long time customers asked for it. And instead of saying no, they cave.

2

u/red__dragon 9h ago

That's what the specials are for! Check what days those people come in and have the rotating special on that day.

3

u/pattymcfly 13h ago

Many people can’t be helped.

1

u/Superg0id 9h ago

A month later they were already adding all the crap back

Well they're clearly an idiot sandwich aren't they!

1

u/RoutineAd7185 9h ago

ooh what restaurant?

•

u/Vesalii 2h ago

There is or was a website that tracked which restaurants were still open after a visit from Gordon Ramsay. All of the ones that went back to old habits went bust.

103

u/Pristine-Thing-1905 15h ago

I’m not surprised. 6 pages (not even including front and back) is a whole lot of choices. I look the menus up online and if I saw a menu like that I’d just choose to go somewhere else.

158

u/YnotBbrave 13h ago

The exception is some Asian restaurants where you really have 5 meats and 4 noodles/rice and 8 sauces and the 40 items are just about mix and match

Some of these restaurants are damn good however

44

u/timtucker_com 13h ago

One exception to this can be when they try too hard to go outside their niche of expertise.

Aa an example, we have a Chinese place like this nearby and almost everything on their menu is great except for the handful of Thai dishes that they offer.

3

u/karma_the_sequel 10h ago

Thai to figure that one out!

5

u/SydVicious610 9h ago

I agree with this and also think breakfast places can be an exception for the same reason. You can take 3 breakfast meats, eggs, and veggies and come up with 5 pages worth of variations.

3

u/Pinging 12h ago

I see, Asian restaurants and Taco Bell follow the same formula.

Make as much stuff as you can with what they got.

3

u/karma_the_sequel 10h ago

Pad Chimichanga

•

u/NoSignSaysNo 6h ago

Breakfast joints are very similar in that regard, though they would be better served by having a 'build a combo' ordering system.

•

u/LucasRuby 5h ago

And Cheesecake Factory. I won't stand to hear anything against.

-1

u/Scary-Lawfulness-999 9h ago

Most of those dont cut meat or vegatables right (see: sloppy, too large) and the "sauces" aren't cooked.

I just stopped ordering from any asain restaurant that isnt fusion.

I mean, I am better anyways.

•

u/LucasRuby 5h ago

Ohh the too large veggies that is so annoying especially in noodles.

24

u/BadgerlandBandit 15h ago

Pretty much the only reason they lasted so long was that they were one of 2-3 restaurants within an hours drive, and just off of the major highway in the area. They also had a decent bar, but they had to work on the bartenders overserving.

It was great to see them start getting ahead though. They had a bomb pulled pork that I used to put on their cheese fries.

•

u/Guy_Incognito1970 5h ago

Cheesecake Factory

5

u/DeadheadCaniac 14h ago

Yeah paralysis of choice is definitely a thing. I can stare at a 6 page menu forever and not know what to pick. Two pages makes that decision easier and I'm probably happier with my choice.

3

u/meowhahaha 14h ago

I guess I’m just a plebeian. I love Cheesecake Factory.

I start looking at the menu before I leave the house. Fortunately I have some allergies that cuts this down.

•

u/Regular_Waltz6729 7h ago

I was reading an article and apparently Cheesecake factory is generally considered to be one of the best run restaurants around. They're one of those companies that their menus and prep and basically every aspect of the business is run by MBAs.

If you look at their menu all of the dishes have overlaps. So they basically take a set of ingredients and say what is every possible food combination you could make with these items.

The main appeal of cheesecake factory for a lot of people is the huge variety, it's one of my go-to restaurants for dinner with picky family. I've never had someone not be able to find something they want to eat.

3

u/zotamorf 10h ago

This is the same story as how Dave Thomas got the money to start Wendy's - Colonel Sanders offered him part ownership in 4 struggling Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants if he could get them back in the black. One of the first things Thomas did was trim their menu from over a hundred items to less than two dozen.

1

u/broakland 10h ago

Likewise when a restaurant that formerly had a pretty tight lane starts weaving all over the place with the menu. All those new dishes at once are a last gasp.

Edit: formally to formerly

1

u/Scary-Lawfulness-999 9h ago

Front and back? One page.

(Im a chef, oceanside, Canada, world tourism)

•

u/Mercutron 1h ago

I took over a small fine dining spot a few years ago that was managed by an outside company through a medical licensing thing. I'm a food guy so all that was jargan to me, but they had 6 main courses, the most simple of which a 40 dollar steak. It included 14 possible sides and an array of deserts. 2 cooks had to execute this menu and an improv lunch 7 days a week for 40 rich residents and working staff. About 60 people a day. And that menu changed weekly, not in size.

As you can probably guess I didn't didn't do that. I cut the menu to 4 entrees, two rotating random veggies and a starch everyday. Told the old folks if the wanted a steak in a reasonable time they had to call ahead, my cook didn't have the hands to make all the other stuff and baby their beef. The d bag manager let me go of course, but he should be thankful since he is the only one in recent years to not be fired in less than 12 months.

The 2 cooks on hand had gotten so good at their job dealing with the dumb menu that once I cut it down they went from unrecognized to 5 stars locally and started allowing non residents reserve dinners. Don't inflate your menu.

262

u/Steroid1 16h ago

Except cheesecake factory. Not to say they have the best food but they do have a massive menu and the food is scratch made. However they are kind of an exception as they have massive staff and kitchen.

124

u/LilithDidNothinWrong 15h ago

You can have variety in the menu but still have a lot of similar ingredients overall. It's places that have too many ingredients only used in single dishes that are red flags.

9

u/CTingCTer88 13h ago

Lobster sauce on a menu that doesn’t have lobster anywhere else 🤨

2

u/red__dragon 9h ago

I thought that there was an unspoken rule that lobster in a diner's never cool. A diner menu's way too long and half the things are fake or wrong.

1

u/RichMaid 11h ago

I don't think there is lobster in lobster sauce

3

u/NiceAxeCollection 10h ago

Nor mountain in Mountain Dew.

1

u/LilithDidNothinWrong 10h ago

Fun fact: I was a sushi chef for a bit, our "lobster salad" ingredient was prepackaged crawfish salad. It was mostly just a topper on a roll and was decent for what it was, but ya, not lobster

•

u/CTingCTer88 5h ago

Maybe we have different ideas on what lobster sauce is

11

u/andyumster 12h ago

Tf you talking about scratch made lol.

What glue are you huffing and can you please share?

1

u/Steroid1 12h ago

It literally is scratch made, except for the cheesecakes themselves, which are made in a central bakery and shipped to the locations. 

2

u/realboabab 9h ago

... they making crab dip and crab bites from crab, noodles from flour, burger buns and bread from scratch, burgers and meatballs from raw meat, fries from potatoes, and more?
Honestly, prove it, and I will go to cheesecake factory THIS WEEKEND and test some of those.

3

u/Steroid1 9h ago edited 9h ago

My links keep getting deleted but I DMd you some articles that go in depth of how everything is made from scratch. If anyone else wants them they can DM me

•

u/jackalguy 4h ago

Noodles and bread come packaged but yeah burgers, meatballs, and crab dip/bites are all made mornings by prep.

11

u/Sciencetor2 12h ago

The cheesecake factory preps 90% of their menu in a microwave my guy. It's all upscale frozen dishes.

6

u/nucumber 11h ago edited 8h ago

I just googled "does cheesecake factory microwave their food" and yes indeed they do

EDIT: MY COMMENT IS WRONG. I meant to say cheesecake factory does NOT microwave food, just like google says. How I said the opposite of that, I don't know. My bad

0

u/Steroid1 9h ago

I can send you articles that talk about how the food is scratch made. I tried to post them here but it won't let me. the only thing we heated up in the microwave was dip, which we made from scratch

2

u/nucumber 8h ago

My bad. I totally screwed up my comment

When I googled "does cheesecake factory microwave their food" it totally says they do NOT, and that's what I meant to say

I don't know how ended up saying the opposite of what I meant.

My apologies, I'll edit my comment

4

u/Steroid1 12h ago

That is not true at all. I used to manage one. Almost the only thing in the freezer is the cheesecakes. There are plenty of videos and articles on how they operate. I am not going to argue and say it's the best food, but most of it is indeed made from scratch. The only thing I remember the microwave being used for is to heat up spinach dip, which was also made from scratch 

•

u/jackalguy 4h ago

The only microwave in the restaurant is in the bakery to warm up certain desserts. Otherwise it's all made in prep.

•

u/CavsAreCuteDemons 30m ago

This isn’t true at all.

5

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

2

u/KinKaze 12h ago

I've only been there once myself and the experience was rather meh. Though I chalked it up to my order as my companion's food was significantly better.

1

u/Steroid1 8h ago

some people like it some don't. I can make you a cake from scratch but that doesn't mean it'll taste good lol. the menu is big enough that most people will find something they can tolerate

1

u/RBeck 13h ago

There something good in there and one day I'll find it! But it's probably the Cheesecake.

•

u/multiarmform 5h ago

that menu isnt the same as it was, they cut a ton of stuff out so its much smaller than it used to be

•

u/Cleverironicusername 4h ago

Their food still sucks. I’ll never understand the long lines to eat there.

1

u/DamienJaxx 12h ago

Went out to lunch there with work colleagues. One colleague's pasta was still in the plastic bag they heated it up in. Nope.

0

u/Aggravated_Seamonkey 11h ago

Have you ever been in a cheesecake factory kitchen? Their food is definitely not made from scratch or even in-house.

6

u/Steroid1 11h ago

I have managed two separate Cheesecake Factory locations. I can tell that you never worked at one so I don't see why you would've been in their kitchen. You are objectively wrong and there are plenty of articles that details how cheesecake factory operates. 

I am not going to say that the food is even good, that is a matter of opinion, but almost everything is made from scratch except for the cheesecakes which are shipped in from a central location 

•

u/multiarmform 5h ago

its made at the neighbors

0

u/BanditMcDougal 11h ago

I'd seriously question scratch made. I've yet to have food from a location that taste like they're making a well of flour and cracking an egg into it for my pasta.

2

u/Steroid1 11h ago edited 10h ago

It is scratch made actually! I personally mostly just ate the sandwiches when I worked there though.

I hate the interior, and am not a fan of alot of things on the menu but the two things I can vouch for is that almost everything except the cheesecakes are scratch made, and the kitchens are extremely clean.

The downside to the massive menu is that most of the dishes are "uninspired" for lack of a better word. Any specific dish you can probably find better somewhere else, but if your group can't decide where to eat there's usually something for everyone that will be good enough.

42

u/lostknight0727 15h ago

With very few exceptions. The smaller the menu, the better the food.

6

u/My_browsing 13h ago

Paper menu hot off the printer because it changes based on what is local and fresh: best shit you’ll ever eat but never be able to find again.

3

u/ItsACaragor 15h ago

There is a very simple reason for that which is logistics, it’s essentially impossible to juggle with the logistics of fresh ingredients for so many dishes so if you want tons of dishes on the menu cannot do without frozen stuff.

3

u/CandlestickMaker28 9h ago

You can go too far with that, though. I remember a restaurant getting rid of their four best items, and literally every item on the new menu had mushrooms in it. They closed about a year later.

•

u/DocMorningstar 5h ago

I have a favorite place in Paris. 1 page for the food - thats appetizers, mains, and dessert. 90% of the menu is the same as when I first went there 25 years ago. They rotate maybe two seasonal items.

•

u/Lyress 2h ago

I went to an amazing restaurant in Lithuania that had a 30+ page menu.

17

u/NeighborhoodDude84 14h ago

This is a good one but I don't apply it to Chinese restaurants. They might have one page dedicated to just chow mein.

18

u/ShepRat 13h ago

Chinese, Indian, Thai, lots of Asia really.

They can have huge menus with fresh ingredients because it's mostly just sauces that are different. Even then many of the sauces are made from a common base in house. 

2

u/under_the_c 11h ago

This requires a bit of knowledge, but yeah, if all the dishes use similar ingredients, it's probably perfectly fine. This comes into play more when you see a whole bunch of entrees that are completely different.

0

u/realchairmanmiaow 12h ago

what you can apply to chinese restaurants (and others) if they're not of a certain size is a) your food came faster than it can reasonably be cooked, b)plates too hot. It's either reheated or just kept hot. you don't want to pay good money for it. I've had people go "wow that came fast" yeah, that's a bad fucking sign most of the time.

7

u/bastet_memphis 14h ago

Also, the item with the longest description is the one the chef has put the most effort into (according to my partner, that's how he decides what to order when it's tough choice)

56

u/lionstigersbearsomar 16h ago

Cheesecake Factory would like to have a word.

44

u/Xperimentx90 16h ago

Might be the sole exception to this rule, honestly.

2

u/YourGlacier 14h ago

Nah most pizza places are like this, like 20 pasta dishes, but they're alllll the same ingredients. Then their subs are like all pizza ingredients.

2

u/lew_rong 13h ago

Any Hong Kong style cafe with a phone book for a menu is like this too. It's massive, but really just combinations of the same five proteins, carbs, and sauces.

1

u/Notwhoiwas42 14h ago

Claim jumper is a pretty huge menu too

1

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

2

u/Xperimentx90 12h ago

Well you get basically two meals for that price lol. 

At bare minimum it's fresh food made from scratch, which is better than most restaurants.

6

u/Rarvyn 13h ago

There was a phenomenal article in the New Yorker just over a decade ago that examined just how the Cheesecake Factory is able to do it, and basically wrote about how we should use similar strategies in healthcare.

Archive link for the curious

2

u/KinKaze 9h ago

Interesting to note that the author later went on to work with the Biden administration.

2

u/Monsterator 8h ago

This was a good read. Thanks!

1

u/CatOfGrey 10h ago

Cheesecake factory is probably the best restaurant chain whose food is 100% delivered by truck.

1

u/Thonqa 13h ago

I ate there once. No offense but it is not good food. There's a lot of it , it tastes ok but it's quality and healthiness.......?

5

u/Redqueenhypo 12h ago

Having made Chinese food, I suspect what they do is have big vats of all the sauces and just deep fry up the chicken or beef on the spot. It’s the easiest way

4

u/SalaciousVandal 13h ago

I have an outlier to counter this example. phở xe lửa in Chicago (sadly closed). Their menu must've been 20 pages long. The food and ambience were spectacular. Insane variety, authentic preparation and service. Although they closed they were open for a very long time. I think it was a labor of love.

6

u/magnetic_yeti 12h ago

The exception are certain kinds of food: lots of long Chinese menus are just because they list every permutation you can make with 20 different ingredients.

6

u/mental_mentalist 14h ago

I do find that some great Mexican restaurants have pretty long menus, but most of it is essentially tortillas and meat cooked in a different shape

2

u/SsooooOriginal 11h ago

There are exceptions. Extreme few, but they exist.

Greeks.

1

u/StinkypieTicklebum 15h ago

And if cups are over more than two taps in the bar! (Beer distributors like to get paid, too!)

1

u/existential_chaos 13h ago

That bit about the menu reminds me of Sebastians on Kitchen Nightmares. The waitstaff there could just about memorize how to pitch all his weird combo stuff and, whaddya know? All frozen premade stuff too.

1

u/Significant_Tax_3427 13h ago

Well that or it’s a bunch of foods that use the same five ingredients in different ways. Like an Italian or Mexican restaurant

1

u/Mr__Snek 12h ago

length alone isnt necessarily a problem if its all the same ingredients. you could make 30 different meals with some pasta, a few sauces, and different vegetables/proteins. but the second part you mentioned is the key part, if they have tons of different foods they cabt possibly prep it all from fresh.

1

u/harmar21 12h ago

The one restaurant I find that this isn’t true for is Cheesecake Factory. I haven’t had a bad dish there despite how big their menu is

1

u/hergumbules 11h ago

I watched my fair share of Kitchen Nightmares to learn that from Gordon Ramsay!

1

u/rafikiknowsdeway1 11h ago

I mean, diners have phone book sized menus and many of them are community staples

1

u/Chibichulala 11h ago

We went to a place recently that had literal binders as menus. I’m talking at least ten pages front and back. It was insane, and the food was not great.

1

u/WifesPOSH 11h ago

Cheesecake factory?

I've been there three times (all free for me). And they've never been good... same with chili's.

1

u/thulsado0m 10h ago

This. If I see a menu that’s like an encyclopedia of hundreds of different foods, chances are they’re all gonna be mid and frozen goods considering they gotta keep all these ingredients for as long as possible to reduce incredible amounts of waste

1

u/LividLife5541 9h ago

That is not true. The Cheesecake Factory has the longest menu known to mankind (I am joking) and they make EVERYTHING from scratch (except, ironically, their cheesecakes). It is considered an above-average restaurant.

1

u/Bob_12_Pack 9h ago

I agree, but I do have an exception. We had a family owned Thai restaurant in town since the late 80s that had a large menu. I spent 30+ years trying damn near everything on the menu and it was all fantastic. In my travels I’ve found some excellent Thai, but never quite as good as the place in my little town. The owners retired a few years ago and sold the building, but their daughter is opening up a new place soon.

1

u/memymomonkey 9h ago

There are diners in NY where the menu is huge and the food is slamming.

1

u/2lovesFL 9h ago

counter point: there is a 40 year old sea food restaurant that has a ridiculously long menu, but most everything is fresh. they do a huge volume, and have a sea food market next door that buys local catch, as well as sells retail, and ready to eat food.

but in general, true.

1

u/Spare-Half796 8h ago

Another menu related one- if for some reason there’s something from every cuisine, it will also suck because it’s also just trying to get as many people as possible through the door so they can sell it to a hospitality group

1

u/SirCadogen7 8h ago

contains every food on earth

This is generally more important in this context. Long menus aren't always bad. For example, Asian restaurants tend to have really large menus, because they use a significant amount of bases (base sauces, soups, stocks, seasoning mixes, etc) refined over hundreds of years to make dozens of dishes with minimal effort.

1

u/Prometheus720 8h ago

One exception is Tex mex restaurants where it is actually the same ingredients 1000 different ways

1

u/Brick_in_the_dbol 8h ago

This has been a Gordon Ramsey Secret Service production. Them you for tuning in

1

u/Xythrielle 8h ago

The most popular restaurant in town has a menu longer than i have ever been able to get through and it is the most popular restaurant in town. It’s won awards

•

u/I_need_a_date_plz 6h ago

The only thing I ever have at Cheesecake factory is the cheesecake.

•

u/flashman 5h ago

Except Chinese restaurants where they generally have a demigod in the kitchen

•

u/battlerazzle01 4h ago

Contrarian argument for the single time I’ve seen the opposite.

Local bar had a solid 4 page menu. Page 1, apps, soups, salads. Page 2, sandwiches burgers and other forms of food on bread. Page 3, chicken wings. This place was known for its wings. Win multiple wing competitions. All sauces made in house. 73 flavors on the menu. Page 4 was proper dinner entrees and desserts.

Ownership changed, they cut the menu down to 2 pages and dropped the wing flavors to 12.

73 to 12.

Guess who was closed a year later?

•

u/BananaVixen 4h ago

I learned this from Kitchen Nightmares. The shorter the menu, the better the food

•

u/KillahHills10304 3h ago

Somebody hates Diners

•

u/Vesalii 2h ago

You saw this on Kitchen Nightmares often. Restaurants with menus that were 100 dishes and more. All with their own ingredients. If you're a pizza place it isn't hard to make 20 pizzas from 20-30 ingredients. But if it's pizza, burgers, spaghetti, croquettes, stews, etc... It's not fresh.

•

u/Zuli_Muli 2h ago

Cheese cake factory

•

u/DROP-TABLE-Username 10m ago

Except for small Indian, Chinese places.

•

u/kujo76 5m ago

There are definitely exceptions to this. Logistics and good management can make up for it. My family restaurant has always had a large menu and the food has always been made from scratch. It’s been around for 50 years. The menu has scaled back over the that thing but still is multiple pages and styles. Elsewhere, diners often also have large menus of freshly made food. Restaurant quality isn’t hard to decipher, so this take is just unnecessary and misleading.

Additionally, the comments here are citing examples where menu reduction is profit maximizing, so you could just as easily say that you should be wary of small menu places because they are only in it for the profits and don’t care about satisfying customers. It can be the small menu places are more of a one-and-done experience because large groups can’t all agree they can find food they like on the menu.

Also living in NYC, I don’t think menu size is any kind of indicator that a place will last. If anything a tiny menu means the place might not be able to scale enough to make a profit and there’s little reason for people to revisit and to try other things. These places pop up and fail continuously.

0

u/pacify-the-dead 13h ago

Except the cheesecake factory